


Plural, Possessive

by livii



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: Community: femslash07, F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-11
Updated: 2007-03-11
Packaged: 2017-10-04 08:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livii/pseuds/livii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It can't be called love, but they are raw and honest and hopeful and dirty liars; they are plural, possessive, adrift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plural, Possessive

**Author's Note:**

> For imitatesfiction in the femslash07 challenge; thanks to glinda_penguin for beta reading.

Dark, in the stormy sea the pitch and swell, Anamaria's fingers tell stories while her lips whisper lies. These are tales Elizabeth does not know, proper daughter of a governor, lady clear and clean who had pirate's gold tucked away between her breasts. She purses her lips together tightly, but she's seen the horizon now, she knows there's a world out there beyond the corners of her island, her patch of dirt and grass and trees and she can't, she can't hold back.

(There are certain motions, movements, cries that they both find discomfiting, they both find hard to reconcile with what they know about the world on land. They forge on regardless; exploring the boundaries of what power they hold in their hands, their lips, their smiles).

Elizabeth cries a little, but Anamaria is not moved; it's not so easy for a dark-skinned girl, no trinkets no tutors no sweet treats surreptitiously handed out by the servants when her father's not looking; no servants either, only a mother that died bonded and a wild daughter who caught a taste of the ocean and decided not to let anyone hold her back. There's no time for little girls here. At sea, women must grow up.

(The sea is everyone's master while upon it, but they claim what they can in challenges and small mercies and scratches that look like small, perfect apostrophes).

If either of them read novels, tawdry affairs with violence and sex and raw human emotion, they'd know they were living a trope, upstairs downstairs one golden and one dark and mysterious, crossing the lines, over the tracks. They have not; to them this is a new tale, creating characterizations and genres with the flutter of an eyelash, a slow exhalation, a bruise slowly swelling on her left shoulder blade. The fact breasts press against breasts, long hair tangling together is almost a secondary plot, but still both narrative strands are so sharp, so arresting, that it can leave them breathless. They have nothing to rely on, out here on the water, the very ground beneath their feet shifting with each slow, drunken lurch of the ship.

(Sometimes they laugh, loudly and freely, subverting accepted style guidelines with their scent, their wild eyes, their cleverness; they are ungraceful and they revel in making mistakes).

Once, a long time ago, Anamaria had her own ship: a good ship, seaworthy and trustworthy. She sailed long and free and whenever she licked her lips, all she could taste was the salt. She understood the sea, Anamaria, understood its powers and fierceness and the way it could as easily provide a tasty fish for dinner as a storm that would make you believe Davy Jones himself was there to drag you down, down underneath. Elizabeth has only crossed the sea once, a young girl caught up in fantasies and make-believe. On deck she holds Anamaria's hand, the men laughing at her shaking legs, her false bravado worn poorly, hung by threads. Anamaria had her own ship, long ago, and in the dark she teaches Elizabeth her secrets, how to stand tall and absorb the salt, not to let it wear you down, wash you away. She builds her up and has no words for what she's done.

(They never speak of why they do this, few days stolen during the journey, moments when Will and Jack and the crew have faded away and they are there, tossed about. They invent code words and sly or blushing references, their own private argot that neatly avoids the _why_ or the _thereafter_).

Once, a long time ago, Anamaria knew a woman: a soothsayer, a shaman, a holy woman, writ large. She appeared with skin dark as sin and hair like snakes, runes carved onto her body that showed under the merciless light of the moon. She told Anamaria riddles and kissed her roughly, biting her tongue with sharp teeth. She kept a curious box and Anamaria swears it was alive, beating out a rhythm you could dance to, drink to, fuck to. Elizabeth blushes as Anamaria replicates the beat on her hips, pulling them together without caring about the sharp knock of delicate bones. Anamaria knew a woman, long ago, and Elizabeth asks her hesitantly if she speaks magic, now, spells and tricks; Anamaria laughs. She never answers.

(There will always be a moment where they are strangers to one another, perpetually nervous and unsure; their meeting represents a dividing line, a demarcation in each other's history that stutters out changes they have trouble accepting. It's dark, at sea, when the clouds are out, and time slips back and forth over that one, crucial point).

When Elizabeth meets Tia Dalma, Anamaria has long sailed away in her new ship, against the tide, around the Cape: gone. She stands awkwardly in the woman's close quarters and tries not to think when the woman starts chanting, starts telling truths the men think are lies, old wives' tales. Will catches her eye and she stumbles, the memory of his kiss, of Jack's kiss, lingering on her lips but Anamaria's small, clever hands petting her hips, her neck, her breasts. He looks away and Tia Dalma smiles, quick, knowing. Later the woman corners her alone and kisses her roughly, biting her tongue with sharp teeth. Elizabeth hears that beat pounding and learns her own spells and tricks, how to move, how to live.

(It can't be called love, but they are raw and honest and hopeful and dirty liars; they are plural, possessive, adrift).

Once, a long time ago, there were two women who slipped together in the night, creating a fairytale without glass slippers or evil stepsisters, but still white knights on horses waiting in the wings for their cue, undeniable, eternal, the face of the future. It was dark, down in the heart of the ship, and Elizabeth whispered a prayer and Anamaria gave good grace to her departed mother, before touching that shining white skin, so pale underneath the fabric, the restraints. Her fingers told stories and her lips, her lips pressed soft and light, punctuating a story that could not end with anything but a final, full stop.


End file.
